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ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Tornado season is clearly here—with deadly storms ripping through the South and Southeast the past two nights.

St. Louis, of course, has had its share of violent spring weather in recent years.

It would be helpful to have a long-range forecast like we do with hurricanes and snowstorms, but Wes Browning, meteorologist-in-charge for the local National Weather Service office, says they simply don’t have that capability at this time.

He says that forecasters’ ability to predicting tornadoes is “almost non-existent”.

“The types of storms that produce tornadoes usually aren’t very predictable beyond about 48 hours,” Browning says. “Those conditions, especially across this part of the country, can change very dramatically.

He says even in 2014, radar technology hasn’t caught up with the volatile nature of storms that produce tornadoes, in which various elements that spawn twisters can happen very quickly.